[FIRST TYPHOID VACCINES IN TURKEY] تيفو آشيسى / Tifo asisi [i.e. The Typhoid vaccine]

SALIM, TEVFIK [SAGLAM] (1882-1963).

Kader Matbaasi, Istanbul, 1922.

Original pinkish wrappers. Roy. 8vo. (24 x 17 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 88 p. Light foxing and chippings to wrappers, heavy wear to spine, internally very clean copy.

First edition of this Ottoman book including the account of the first administration of typhus vaccine by the author himself on the Eastern and Caucasian fronts on March 15, 1915, while he was on duty with the Ottoman army. The book was written after that Salim appointed as “Gülhâne Seririyât Dahiliye Muallimi” [i.e., Teacher of the Gülhâne Clinical Instruction Internal Medicine] and was awarded by the Ottoman Medical Society.

The book also includes the prices of the vaccine, where the disease prevalent in its period is, the history of typhus disease, the first vaccination in Europe (Tirol), etc.

Military doctor Tevfik Bey was successful in diagnosing the then-unknown disease, which he had previously encountered while serving in Yemen. He administered the first typhoid vaccine to sick soldiers in Erzurum, during the First World War, on March 15, 1915.

When the Balkan War started in 1912, Tevfik Bey was appointed as the Chief Physician of the Sanitary Parade of the Salonica Redif Legion. When the war ended, he was appointed to Yassiviran Menzil Hospital. He was sent to Gülhane (Istanbul) because he caught typhus disease while on duty.

After the First World War started, he was assigned to Erzurum. Typhoid was one of the epidemic diseases that started in Erzurum and its surroundings after the defeat against the Russian Army in Sarikamis in 1915. Army Commander Hafiz Hakki fell ill with typhoid on February 3, 1915, and died ten days later. All the doctors fell ill and most of them died.

Under the chairmanship of Colonel Sarigüzelli Yusuf Ziya Bey, Tevfik Salim, Haydar (Draman), Tevfik Ismail (Karagümrük), Fahri (Urdag), Bacteriologist Doctor Server Kamil and Fikri Bey held a meeting and decided to use the serum obtained from the blood of patients with fever as a preventive measure. Thus, on March 15, 1915, Tevfik Bey administered the vaccine he had personally prepared to five volunteer physicians and four headquarters officers for the first time. The results obtained when the vaccine was successful, were published in Germany by Tevfik Salim and even the German army gave the vaccine to its soldiers.

The first typhoid vaccines were developed in 1896 by Almroth Edward Wright, Richard Pfeiffer, and Wilhelm Kolle.

Özege 21049.; As of May 2024, OCLC reveals only three paper institutional copies worldwide, two copies are in UCLA, a US institutional library.